June 2010

We know that many of you have been waiting for an update to our iPhone app that supports the latest iOS 4 and background listening. We’re happy to say that an updated app has been submitted to Apple for review. Hopefully we’ll get a speedy approval and to make up for the extra little wait time we’ve added a nice little surprise to make Spotify mobile even more exciting for you, stay tuned!

The Fib Heineken Festival is one of Europe’s most renowned music festivals, set amongst the stunning natural beauty of the East Spanish coastal town of Benicassim. The unique location of the festival and the nine days of camping allow the attendees to enjoy a beach holiday as well as a music festival.

As a special prize for our users we’ve got two pairs of VIP tickets to giveaway for the event.

To win the tickets we’re looking for you to put together the ultimate summer playlist and submit it here on the blog along with a short reason why you and to attend the festival and we’ll pick the two top playlists and contact the winners.

World Cup fever, strawberry splits and Wimbledon whites… aaah, summer, glorious summer, with your sweaty buses and cooling breezes, how we love thee. And how we love to summer parties, blasting bass at barbeques and laying around listening to hazy songs when it’s too hot to sleep. Here is a selection of playlists by DrownedinSound.com to throw on your stereo this summer.

Ahead of this year’s Glastonbury festival (full coverage here) we have compiled a 40-track playlist featuring some of the highlights of the world’s most influential over the past 40 years. Premium subscribers with their mobile devices hooked up to their car stereo, as well as those of you slinging all your stuff in a giant bag on your back, can enjoy this en route. Warning: this playlist includes Aswad.Listen/Subscribe.

This is a playlist I threw together for a party last summer. You may notice I got bored compiling half-way through and put on loads of songs with sun-related titles, like ‘Staring at the Sun’, a song by TV on the Radio and by U2 and also by The Offspring. Listen/Subscribe.

Scissor Sisters, one of the biggest acts in the past decade, have been hard at work in the studio putting the finishing touches on their third album, Night Work. The new album is the follow-up to the phenomenal success of 2006’s #1 album Ta-Dah.

Starting today, Spotify Premium subscribers can listen to a five-track sampler taken from the new album, including a Spotify-exclusive remix, before the album’s street launch on June 28th. Also be sure to check out the video for the first single, Fire With Fire.

Grammy nominated and Aria winner, Sia is originally known as the mesmerizing voice behind Zero 7. She returns this summer with a brand new single ‘Clap Your Hands’ which is taken from her fourth album ‘We Are Born’, a total feelgood pop triumph delivered with Sia’s signature flair.

The album is set for wide release in September but in an exclusive to Spotify users can listen to the entire album all summer long before anyone else – for more information about Sia check out www.siamusic.net.

ShareMyPlaylists.com provides us with another in their series of excellent playlist posts. You can check out thousands of playlists at ShareMyPlaylists.com – they’ve got a little something for everyone.

One Hit Wonder A playlist that will spark many a ‘I remember that’ moment here with a mixture of true class from the likes of Deee-Lite, Semisonic and Spin Doctors and some slightly more questionable, but equally enjoyable, numbers from Rick Astley, Chumbawamba and Babylon Zoo. Not all strictly one hit wonders but a great listen none the less.

The Soundtrack to May 2010
Top Share My Playlister iamnottheenemy has put together another monthly musical retrospective for your audio pleasure, and what a cracking month May has been. Huge tunes from Chemical Brothers, LCD Soundsystem, UNKLE, Massive Attack, The Black Keys and innumerable other sonic masterpieces all together in one handy playlist.

Tiffany Page’s Playlist
Next up is a selection of tunes picked by hotly tipped singer songwriter Tiffany Page. “The songs that I’ve chosen inspire me to pick up my guitar and start writing” says the 24 year old. Her choices include The Rolling Stones, The Rapture and Radiohead amongst others. Check her out her recent EP, Intro, for yourself here.

Hot on the heels of our update to our Android app we’re releasing an update to our Symbian app which brings a number of the great social and local file features we’ve recently launched to your Nokia, Sony Ericsson or Samsung compatible phone.

The additions include:

Support for playing and wirelessly synchronizing local files to your phone

The Inbox and Starred features have been added

We’ve added support for the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro and Nokia C5 phones

Point your mobile phone’s browser to m.spotify.com to download the update. Enjoy!

We’re delighted to announce the launch of Spotify on TVs across Sweden and Finland. As part of our partnership with TeliaSonera we are making Spotify available to their digital TV subscribers as of today.

The app will be available to TeliaSonera digital TV customers who have subscribed to the Spotify Premium service. The app gives you access to a streamlined version of our music application that can be used to listen to Spotify playlists on your TV screen via the TeliaSonera remote control.

We’re really excited to be bringing Spotify straight into your living room – many of you have your sound systems hooked up to your TV and this is a great way to access your playlists from the comfort of your couch.

If you have a digital TV box from TeliaSonera that supports Spotify it will be automatically updated with the new app and you can login with your existing Spotify Premium account. For more details be sure to visit TeliaSonera’s Spotify page.

Summer is here? Yes, summer is here. Sort of. Maybe. Who knows. By the time you read this there could be blizzards in Scandinavia and a mild frost in Surrey. However, for the month for the month of May 2010 the sun was shining and my stereo reflected as much, so what the hell, not everything on here was out this month but a lot of it will sounds great with the June sun pouring through your window and the breeze brushing your bare legs.

Gonzales has been chilling the world out with his pianos for longer than I’ve had hair on my 28-year-old chest. He is world renown genius, friends with/massively admired by Peaches, Feist and Jarvis but is barely known outside of certain in-the-know circles. If you are not so in-the-know, let this reworked version of a track from his forthcoming album via Erol Alkan’s _Phantasy_ label, easily one of my songs of the year, act as an introduction to the pianist with the pee-mostest.

2) Colder ‘To The Music’

With news of a new Interpol album causing a mixture of fear and excitement, I thought it about time that these frustratingly unknown French dark-wave riding electronic types Colder got some of the attention that their brooding dingy-disco deserved back in, oooh, 2005, right around the time when nearly every stereo in UK/Europe was still clogged up with The Killers’ Hot Fuss.

3) Soulwax ‘Too Many Djs’

We’ve heard rumblings that Soulwax are due back with some new material before the year is out. While you wait, here’s a certifiable T-U-N-E from the chaps also known as 2ManyDJs fromback around the turn of the century. Warning: features ridiculous flemish beat-boxing.

4) Tom Vek ‘I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes’

There are also unconfirmed reports that Tom Vek has a new band. He’s been ‘missing’ for quite a while. He’s currently on a post-it note with the likes of The Rapture and Beck of acts due back this year but possibly not. Come back Tom… please?

We’ve had a lot of great new features and releases in the past few weeks and on top of all these changes we’ve managed to move to great new offices in London and Stockholm.

A few weeks ago our London team moved into a spacious new location in Soho, complete with ping-pong table and all.

And this past weekend our Stockholm crew completed its move to a nice big new space in central Stockholm. Last night we kicked off the new office with some champagne and strawberries and a great acoustic set from Joshua Radin.

Big thanks to everyone who helped with the moves and invested many hours to make the new offices feel like home.